Play Misty for Me

Play Misty for Me is a 1971 American neo noir psychological thriller film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, his directorial debut. Jessica Walter and Donna Mills co-star. The screenplay, written by regular Eastwood collaborators Jo Heims and Dean Riesner, follows a radio disc jockey being stalked by an obsessed female fan.

The film was a critical and financial success, with Walter earning praise for her first major film role, including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.

Dave Garver is a KRML radio disc jockey who broadcasts nightly from a studio in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, often incorporating poetry into his program. After work at his favorite bar, playing a nonsensical game involving corks and bottle caps with the barman, he deliberately attracts the attention of a woman named Evelyn Draper. Garver drives Draper home, where she reveals that her presence in the bar was not accidental; it was she in fact who sought him out after hearing the bar mentioned on his radio show. He guesses correctly that she is the recurring caller who always requests the jazz standard "Misty". The two have sex.

A casual relationship begins between Dave and Evelyn. But before long, Evelyn begins to display obsessive behavior and volatile personality traits that alarm Dave. She shows up at Dave's house uninvited, follows him to work, and calls to demand that he not leave her alone for a single minute. The final straw comes when a jealous Evelyn disrupts a business meeting, mistaking Dave's lunch companion for his date and ruining a major opportunity for his career.

His efforts to gently sever ties with Evelyn lead her to attempt suicide in his home by slashing her wrists. After Dave rejects her again for trying to blackmail him with her injuries, Evelyn breaks into his home and his housekeeper Birdie finds her vandalizing his possessions. Evelyn stabs Birdie (who is hospitalized but survives) and is subsequently committed to a psychiatric hospital.

During Evelyn's incarceration, Dave rekindles a relationship with his ex-girlfriend Tobie Williams. A few months later, Evelyn again calls the studio to request "Misty". She tells Dave that she has been granted parole and is moving to Hawaii for a fresh start in life. She then quotes the Edgar Allan Poe poem "Annabel Lee". That night, while Dave is asleep, Evelyn sneaks into his house and attempts to kill him with a knife, but he manages to fend her off and she escapes. Dave has a detective, McCallum, tap his phone in case she contacts him again.

Dave tells Tobie about Evelyn and cautions Tobie to stay away from him until the woman is caught, to which she agrees. Unbeknownst to him, Evelyn has already gained access to Tobie by posing as her new roommate, "Annabel". Tobie eventually realizes that Annabel is Evelyn when she sees the fresh scars on Evelyn's wrists, but before Tobie can escape, Evelyn takes Tobie hostage (she ties up Tobie and gags her). When McCallum arrives at Tobie's house for a welfare check, Evelyn fatally stabs him with a pair of scissors.

Dave makes the connection between Tobie's roommate and the poem. When he calls Tobie to warn her, Evelyn answers and says that she and Tobie are waiting for him. Dave switches from a live show to taped music and rushes to the house, where he finds Tobie gagged and bound hand and foot. As he approaches the trussed-up Tobie, Evelyn attacks him with her knife, slashing Dave multiple times over three assaults in the darkened house. On the third assault, Dave punches Evelyn in the face, knocking her backwards through the glass window and on to the balcony; she falls over a railing and then down onto the rocky shore below, to her death. A wounded Dave returns into the house and unties Tobie, and the two of them leave the house as his voice on the radio show leads into the song "Misty".